alex_mcfarlane

I am looking for some advice to help me with a move to Italy in July / August this year. Though as I understand I might be able to get away with not changing anything for 6 months as that is when I will become an 'official' resident.

I am a remote freelancer currently in in the UK and I have been running my Limited (VAT registered) company in the UK for around 10 months. There is just myself at the company and I have everything running as I would like.

Please find come notes / thoughts below of what I am trying to achieve:

- I don't want to avoid TAX in either the UK or Italy, I feel strongly about paying my fair share in the countries I live in. Having said that I would not mind being less TAX efficient if it makes my live and my clients lives simpler. Though being TAX'ed twice would be a bit of an issue.

- I have the setup I like now, I manage my UK company using freeagent.com and it is setup and very simple for me. I would like to retain this if possible.
I will work for clients mainly in remotely in the UK and invoice in GBP. Ideally I would like to invoice through my existing UK company in GBP. My clients are setup / contracts signed and it would be much simpler not to have to make them bill to an Italian company in EUR.

- Ideally I would like to keep the UK company as this is just easier. My one idea was to keep this company and setup an Italian company who's only client is my UK company then I just invoice that company every quarter and then pay TAX on that amount in Italy?

- Or someone said I might just be able to pay corporation TAX in the UK and personal TAX in Italy. Though I don't know, and it is important for me to be legal.

- Again the above are just ideas, if I need to setup a sole Italian company then I will need to do that. If this is the case, can I still use freeagent.com to manage my invoices?

If anyone could provide any help or advice on the above it would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone knows any UK / Italian English speaking accountants would might be able to help that would be great also.

nicktonight

Hi Alex
Quite a complex tax question made all the more so as if you keep your UK company you will in actual fact be working in Italy even though your invoices will have a UK address (am I right?). You will therefore be avoiding paying the very high Italian social charges (INPS of nearly 30 per cent) on your income and you may have problems getting health cover and therefore residency here. If you ask for residency and you have no income in Italy they may ask questions about you and find out that you are actually working in Italy so should in fact pay the social charges as an English company must pay social charges on people it employs in Italy.
In your position (I was once) and if I was in good health I woud try to keep a non-resident status for as long as possible until I was absolutely sure about taking the major step of starting an Italian company which would lead to a very large drop in income for very little benefit.

arjacey

Alex

I am in almost the same situation as you although we are maybe a little behind in our planning, possible looking to rent next year keeping UK residency and properties etc, while looking for a permanent move the year after, given that we can sell up property in the UK.

I get encouraged when property hunting especially as the exchange rate is so good now (although who knows where it will be when we are ready?), but then discouraged when I look at the difficulties of making the permanent move and staying 'above' the radar.

I think it will be easier if we retire before we move although I have a little way to go before this would be feasible.

It would be great to keep in touch and hear of your experiences, either through the forum or PMs.

Good luck.

Bob